John Williams Brewer
John Williams Brewer (1841-1894)
1895 Obituary [1]
JOHN WILLIAM BREWER, born at Llanelly, Brecknockshire, on the 26th of March, 1841, was the fourth son of the late John Brewer, who for more than forty years was engineer and agent to an important firm of iron manufacturers, and was also manager of the Rumney Railway previous to its amalgamation with the Brecon and Merthyr line.
Leaving school at the age of fifteen, he spent three years in the Locomotive Department of the Runmey Railway, under his father, and then served articles for a similar period to David Jones, the engineer of that line. After the expiration of his pupilage he made surveys and prepared working drawings for the conversion of the railway from Bassaleg to Rhymney into a parliamentary line and for the branch from Machen to Caerphilly.
In. June, 1861, Mr. Brewer was appointed an Assistant to John Williams, the engineer of new works on the Taff Vale Railway, and for the following nine years was engaged on the Llantrisant and Taff Vale Junction, the Dare Valley, the Brecon and Merthyr, and the Rumney lines ; on the Pontypridd Waterworks ; and on the Llangennech and other colliery surveys.
In 1870 he took an office in Cardiff, where he practised for the next ten years as a Civil and Mining Engineer. During that period he constructed branch lines to the Treforest Tinworks, to the Rhondda and Ely Colliery, and to the Penrhiwceiber Colliery; prepared surveys of the Ynysybwl branch, of the Penarth Docks, of several collieries and of Crawshay Bailey’s mineral estates ; and assisted in the general engineering work of the Taff Vale Railway.
From 1880 until his death Mr. Brewer was permanently in the service of the Taff Vale Railway,....[more]